So I had started painting on my big canvas yesterday, but it wasnt stretched as tightly as it could be and after talking with Jane today she suggested that it would be best to restretch the canvas. Jane suggested that I should turn the canvas and stretch it the other way around so with a bit of help that is what I have done today. Tomorrow I will prime the new side of the canvas and hopefully get painting on it again tomorrow afternoon.
Over the last week I have decided that I am going to start a painting on a much larger scale, 6ft x 4ft. I have primed the canvas, bought wood to have a frame made up and on friday I got the canvas stretched over the frame that was made the day before. To try and tighten the canvas more, once it was stretched I went over it with another layer of primer, so hopefully it will have tightened over the weekend while it dried.
Then tomorrow I will start painting onto it. As I havent taken my own images yet I might work from secondry images, however I might carry on working from memory like I have done so far. Even though I am working on a much larger scale this is still an experiment as I have no planned outcome for when the painting is finished and have never painted on such a big scale before in this way.
Maggi Hambling
I started looking at Maggi Hamblings work not to long ago in relation to what I am doing at the minute and with her visit soon I thought Id look at her work a little bit more.
While looking at some of her paintings it made me think about whether I am trying to paint an actual seascape or whether I want to paint much more abstract parts from within a seascape. Much like Maggi Hambling’s Wave Crashing, 2007 or Rolling Sea, 2010.
I have attached the link to a video on youtube, in which Maggi Hambling talks about her wave paintings and how she started by going to the beach near where she lived and making sketches of the sea and the waves. I think for me to improve this is something that I need to do. Instead of working directly from memory I could take my own photos and create my own sketches to work from alongside working from memory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDxvcx03c38
http://www.marlboroughfineart.com/artist-Maggi-Ham…
I spent the morning in my studio space today, I started off by testing some acrylic colours in my sketch book and oil paints onto a small canvas board.
Like I said before, for me to progress I need to get out of my sketch book and paint on a larger canvas, which is what I ended up doing this morning. I wasnt sure how I wanted it to look when it was finished as I wasnt working directly from an image. I was still pretty much experimenting but on a larger scale, although I knew I wanted a painting that looked slightly abstract that kept in with the seascape theme. I wanted to create an atmosphere within the painting by building up texture and layers of paint.
I think by creating more work on a larger scale like this (instead of working in a small sketch book) I will improve on my techique and learn what works well and does not work as well. However I am really pleased with how this painting turned out!
Lately I have been spending more time in my studio space experimenting with different ways of applying paint and experimenting with acrylic and oil paints. I have been using my sketch book for these experiments and to try out different colours together before applying them onto canvas.
I find working into a sketch book is good for testing colours, however my brustrokes are ristricted by the size of the sketch book and I think this makes them look less effective. For me to progress to the next stage within my work I need to get out of painting scenes into a sketch book and start working on canvas and increase the size I work on. Mainly because an idea I have had for my degree show work will be to have paintings on a large canvas and I want to start trying this out soon.
Final year Fine Art student at University Campus Suffolk.
